Didigiri: Kolkata cops push a CBI officer into a van outside the residence of the police commissioner on Sunday night (left); West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee sits on a 'Save the Constitution' dharna

Key Highlights

Kolkata police rounded up a team of eight CBI officials

These officials had gone to police commissioner Rajeev Kumar’s official bungalow on Sunday evening to question him

The move triggered an unprecedented confrontation between the Narendra Modi government and Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee

KOLKATA: Kolkata police rounded up a team of eight CBI officials who had gone to police commissioner Rajeev Kumar’s official bungalow on Sunday evening to question him, and forcibly took them to the nearby Shakespeare Sarani police station, triggering an unprecedented confrontation between the Narendra Modi government and chief minister Mamata Banerjee. Several hundred city police personnel laid siege to two central government buildings which house CBI’s offices and the joint director’s residence as well as the Enforcement Directorate – prompting senior bureau officers to approach the Bengal governor Keshari Nath Tripathi. Banerjee, sensing a political windfall from the CBI operation, first went to the police commissioner’s residence where she accused the Centre of trying to stage a “constitutional coup in Bengal”. She then drove to the heart of the city to start a dharna against the Centre’s “super-emergency”.

The siege of central government offices ended around 8 pm after an order from the CM to de-escalate the tension. A team of CRPF personnel then formed a cordon around the offices, indicating that the stand-off might continue in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls, especially since the BJP has emerged as the Trinamool Congress’s main opposition in the state.

The governor late on Sunday night summoned chief secretary Malay De and DGP Virendra and asked for a comprehensive report. The series of events started on Saturday, with the CBI in Delhi upping the ante against Kumar. Agency officials alleged Kumar was “absconding” and that he faced “imminent arrest” for allegedly delaying and diluting an SIT probe in the Sarada and Rose Valley chit fund ponzi scam. This invited a strong rebuttal from Banerjee and senior police officials. (TOI was the only paper that reported all of this in its Sunday edition.)

On Sunday again, additional commissioner of police Jawed Shamim convened a press conference at the city police’s Lalbazar headquarters where he labelled the CBI allegations — of police commissioner Kumar “absconding” — as being “baseless, mala fide and defamatory”. Kumar had attended office every day, even on weekends, barring one casual-leave day on January 31, Shamim added. The CBI notices to Kumar were also under a Calcutta High Court stay till February 13. Barely an hour after the briefing ended, all hell broke loose. Eight CBI officers (led by deputy superintendent of police Tathagata Bardhan) knocked at the visitors’ post at Kumar’s Loudon Street residence, asking to be let in for “official work”. Security personnel posted there made the CBI officials wait as others spread the word that the CP’s residence had been “besieged by the CBI”.

Deputy commissioner of police (south) Miraz Khaled was the first senior KP official to reach the spot. He drove from his 35 Park Street office — a few hundred metres from his boss’s residence — to question the CBI officers. A few dozen cops, who accompanied Khaled, tried to force the CBI officers into KP cars. Bardhan initially tried to step into his car, parked a short distance away on Short Street, while the others tried to cross over to the pavement opposite CP Kumar’s residence. But KP personnel, who outnumbered the CBI team heavily, succeeded in forcing them into the waiting cars and bundled them to Shakespeare Sarani police station. Around the same time, another CBI team reached Park Street police station with some documents but were asked by officer-in-charge to go to Shakespeare Sarani police station as the CP’s home fell under the latter’s jurisdiction.

Banerjee herself reached Kumar’s residence a few minutes into the drama around 7.05 p.m. Simultaneously, cops started being deployed around CBI offices at the Salt Lake CGO Complex and Nizam Palace on AJC Bose Road, which also houses the residence of the CBI joint director (east), the highest-ranking CBI official here. The siege continued for about an hour, before cops started withdrawing around 8.30 p.m. By now, however, central agencies had decided not to take any risk. Central Reserve Police Force personnel started arriving at these offices in a little while and formed protective cordons around them. The CM was closeted inside Kumar’s home for 40 minutes, where she met her top security advisors — special security advisor Surajit Kar Purakayastha, state director-general of police Virendra, additional director-general (law and order) Anuj Sharma and Kumar himself — as the stand-off continued. Banerjee’s first comments after she came out indicated that she viewed the CBI measures as a “political move” and was going to fight this out politically. “They came to the commissioner of police’s home without any court order or warrant. The matter is sub-judice in the Calcutta HC and there is a stay order. This is blatantly wrong and an infringement on our federal structure. It is not about the person (I rate Kumar as the best police officer in the world) but it is about the office he holds. That office provides security to the city of Kolkata and has its own dignity and decorum. It is my responsibility as the state’s administrative head to stand by my men and women who work for me and the state, unselfishly,” she said. ALSO READ: CBI vs Mamata Banerjee live updatesShe then lashed out at the “constitutional coup” and accused the Centre of declaring a “super-emergency”. “Elections are due in some time. Is it a coup? Is it Article 355 or Article 356 next? I have been made a target for holding the January 19 United India rally in Kolkata. There was pressure on me but I did not buckle. I have information that CBI officers were summoned to Delhi that very day. They were told ‘kuchh toh karo (do something)’. One person is behind all this; he is National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. He is giving orders to the CBI. They are taking control of all federal institutions,” she said, before declaring that she would stage a dharna “till this issue is resolved”. “Things always start before elections. We saw this prior to the 2016 assembly polls, then just before the panchayat polls and now again before 2019 Lok Sabha polls. There has to be an end to this and, hence, my satyagraha to save the Constitution,” Banerjee said. Watch CBI is acting at behest of PM Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, alleges West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee